Operation Juliet: Busting the Bogey of #LoveJihad

A Cobrapost and Gulail investigation reveals how the BJP and right-wing organizations like the VHP, RSS and their splinter groups use violence, intimidation, emotional blackmail, duplicity and drugs to split up Hindu–Muslim married couples

OPERATION JULIET: PRESS RELEASE

New Delhi: In the course of this one-year long investigation, codenamed Operation Juliet, the Gulail team met leaders and workers of the BJP, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) such as BJP MP from Muzaffarnagar and Minister of State for Agriculture Sanjeev Kumar Balyan; BJP MLA from Thana Bhawan in Uttar Pradesh, Suresh Rana; BJP MP from Kairana in UP, Hukum Singh; BJP MLA from Sardhana, Sangeet Som; BJP’s district level leader in Muzaffarnagar Sanjay Agarwal; Umesh Mallik, who contested the Assembly election from Budhana on a BJP ticket and lost; Shrikar Prabhu, Karnataka BJP’s executive member who has since been expelled from the party; BJP MLC from Mangalore, Captain Ganesh Karnik; RSS leader Omkar Singh in Muzaffarnagar; Lalit Maheshwari, VHP’s Muzaffarnagar unit head; Jagdish Shenava, advocate and VHP’s Mangalore district president; VHP worker Hari Shiv Prasad; Shiv Kumar Sharma, the founder of Krishna Sena, a religious organization; and the chief of Hindu Unity Forum Ravish Tantri.

Their interviews with Shazia Nigar bring out the following facts:

 They forcibly rescue girls who are victims of “love jihad.”

 They misuse public support for mounting pressure on police and local administration to nullify such marriages.

 They file fake rape and kidnapping cases against Muslim youth who elope with or marry Hindu women.

 They use fake documents showing girls as minor so as to implicate the Muslim boys.

 If a Hindu woman is not willing to give a statement against her Muslim lover or husband or is not willing to forsake him, they use emotional blackmail and physical force to make her fall in line.

 They even administer medicinal drugs on “love jihad” victims to induce temporary amnesia to rescue them from inter-religious marriages.

 Interestingly, not a single woman, they claimed to have rescued, ever sought their help saying she was a victim of “love jihad.”

 They distribute inflammatory pamphlets and books to further their cause.

 They run counselling centres and Hindu helplines to brainwash Hindu women who marry outside their community into giving up on their love life and settle for the man chosen by the Hindutva Brigade.

 These counselling sessions consist of a poor depiction of the man she is in love and denigration of his religion, call to her family and community honour, instilling a sense of insecurity in the woman with regard to her future and use of threat of physical harm to both her and her lover.

Apart from claiming to have employed such dirty tricks to rescue the so-called victims of “love jihad”, the Hindu brigade interviewed claimed “love jihad” was responsible for Muzaffarnagar riots that took place a couple of months before Uttar Pradesh assembly elections. Two BJP leaders, Sanjeev Baliyan and Umesh Malik, confessed to their roles in these riots. Among these fanatics, we have Shiv Kumar, the founder of Krishna Sena, who claims to have been a Hindu terrorist whose job was to kill people from minority communities.

Our team visited Muzaffarnagar and Meerut in Uttar Pradesh, Mangalore in Karnataka, and Kasaragod and Ernakulum in Kerala, apart from Delhi, to find the truth behind love jihad. Infiltrating the ranks of these groups, we discovered a sinister twist to love jihad: it was carried out with sanctions from the very top, from the BJP, VHP and RSS. Gulail have on record BJP MLAs and heads of the right-wing groups admitting to their role in violent and illegal activities related to “love jihad” and how they manipulated, intimidated, used force and blackmail with Hindu girls who had eloped and married Muslim and Christian boys. The communal and patriarchal base of “love jihad” means that the immediate victims are not just Muslim men but also Hindu women.

These right-wing groups slap fabricated cases of rape and kidnapping on innocent Muslim men and use force on “uncooperating” Hindu women – who have married Muslim men – to toe their line and give false testimonies against their husbands. Apart from exposing the communal mind set of those involved, their own admission is evidence of how they have broken the law at several levels.

Pretending to be an M. Phil. student from Jawaharlal Nehru University in Delhi who was associated with right-wing student organisation ABVP, our correspondent Shazia Nigar explored the underbelly of “love jihad” in Muzaffarnagar, Karnataka and Kerala.

Across Uttar Pradesh, Karanataka and Kerala, the narrative around what the BJP, RSS and VHP define as love jihad is eerily similar. Umesh Mallik, who contested MLA elections from Budhana on a BJP ticket and lost, addressed a panchayat in Phugana village in Muzaffarnagar on January 29, 2014.

Referring to the rape cases the rioters were being charged by the police, Umesh Mallik tells the panchayat, “Behlake, phuslake, jhoot bolke, kisibhitareeke se jail bhejdein. Ye prashasan kar raha hai. Iske upar vichaar karna padega. 100 ke 100 per cent jhoote hain (The government is trying to send people to jail by cajoling them, by lying, by any means. We have to think over this. It is a 100 per cent lie).”

Preparing the grounds for the Sarv panchayat, Mallik continues to stoke people’s passions by portraying these rape cases as a matter of family honour for the accused. Exhorting the gathering, he says, “Friends, elders and the youth, if in these rape cases we go to jail then our families’ honour will dwindle and will not be forgotten for a hundred years).” Depicting the issue as a question of honour for the Hindu community is bound to create hurdles for effective delivery of justice and thus is a subversion of the criminal justice system.

Mallik adds, “If our mothers and sisters’ honour is at stake, our daughters-in-law and our daughters’ honour is at stake, then I say in this panchayat that if we can die we can kill also.”

In his conversation with Shazia, Malik accuses the famous Islamic seminary of Deoband of training Muslim boys for “love jihad.” He says: “Those people (Muslims) have eight children, ten children and they send one or two of them to Deoband. There the handsome ones are selected and trained to trap Hindu girls. They are told if they do this Allah will be pleased with them. Their religion says this. They do this work of trapping our girls and making them elope. In the last four months, 27 girls have eloped.”

Hukum Singh, BJP MP from Kairana in Uttar Pradesh echoes what Umesh Malik has said. Accusing as much Muslim youth of enticing Hindu girls as he rues the freedom that Hindus give their daughters while Muslims are becoming far more conservative, Hukum Singh offers moral policing as a solution to the menace of “love jihad.” He says, “If a father, as a Hindu, wants his children not to be influenced by such a culture, he needs to be alert. RSS is talking about this, BJP is talking about this. BJP is doing it through politics and RSS is doing it through social awakening.”

Hukum Singh was named in the FIR filed by the Uttar Pradesh Police last year for allegedly inciting the rioting mobs in Muzaffarnagar and Shamli.

BJP Lok Sabha member from Muzaffarnagar Sanjeev Balyan says, “Every village has a maulvi. They have an organised system. Maulvis sit in masjids and decisions are passed onto them from above. The maulvi conveys this to the people and they listen to him. They don’t use their brains, they don’t think. The maulvi asks them to produce children, so they do. The maulvi says that Muslims have ruled over this land for 700–800 years and they will again. They talk about such things. They do not understand. There is such a dangerous conspiracy to expand this operation.”

On January 29, 2014, Sanjeev Balyan addressed a panchayat meeting in village Phugana in Muzaffarnagar where he incited people to not cooperate with investigations in the rape cases related to the riots and admitted giving a communal colour to events preceding the riots.

Such mobilisation is geared towards creating an atmosphere where the police machinery cannot function. Making an overt call for non-cooperation with the government towards delivering justice, Baliyan says, “Mera shujhav hai ke prashashan ke paas baar baar na jao. Baar baar jane se humari takat kamzor ho… Ispe baat cheet karo hi na. Kyunki baat cheet ke bad beech ka rasta nikle ga. Ismein beech ka rasta koi nikalna nahin hai (I suggest not going to the administration again and again. By going repeatedly to them, we become weak. Don’t even talk about it. Because after talking there will be a compromise. In this there can’t be any compromise).”

Balyan’s address also revealed the BJP’s attempt to mobilise Hindus by portraying the riots and the perceived injustice by the state government as something that concerned not just the Jats but all caste groups. In Uttar Pradesh, where Mayawati’s Bahujan Samaj Party could garner a sizable portion of the Dalit votes, this emphasis on the Hindu identity as opposed to caste identity is an important aspect of the BJP’s electoral campaign. Reminding people that they were one in this fight against a state government that is sympathetic to Muslims, Baliyan says “Saara danga isi ilake main hua hai, usmain saari jaati ke log hain. Aisa nahin hai ke sirf Jat hi Jat hain. Harijan bhi hain, saare hain. Aur har khap ke log hain (All the riots happened in this area, people from all castes were involved in it. It’s not as though there were Jats only. There were Harijans also, all were there. There were people from all khaps).”

He also says that there was an organised effort to give a communal turn to the events in Kawal, a village in Muzaffarnagar, which led to large scale rioting and killings of Muslims. Violence that had erupted between Jats and Muslims was portrayed as tension between Hindus and Muslims. Balyan admits that Jats, Thakurs and Dalits were mobilised and brought together by him and other members of the BJP. He says that he organised the first panchayat at Kutba, which was the centre point of violence, although he claims it was in response to the panchayat called by the Muslims.

To counter “love jihad”, the BJP, RSS and VHP conduct what they call “rescue operations”. These operations often involve forcibly separating the couple, using violence on both of them and slapping fabricated cases of kidnapping and rape on the Muslim husbands. These organisations have formed teams comprising lower level workers who keep an eye on cases of Hindu girls eloping with Muslim boys. Some of them also use right-wing leaning lawyers as informants. If an application is filed with the marriage registrar’s office under the Special Marriage Act, these lawyers tip these teams.

Sanjay Agarwal, who contested municipal elections on a BJP ticket in Muzaffarnagar in 2014, admits to have used force, violence and threats to compel girls to give false testimonies against Muslim boys, names senior RSS leaders from the town who have helped convert Muslim girls into Hindus and exposes his deep seated communal mind set when he says “We have to work towards ensuring every citizen of India is a Hindu.”

He claims: “A lot of advocates are swayam sevaks. They keep an eye to see if a Hindu girl registers at the city magistrate or the SDM’s office for marriage and the date given. They find out who her lawyer is and if she is in the lawyer’s chamber. Then they call us. We go there with our whole team… 50, 60, 70 people.”

Our correspondent meets Krishna Sena founder Shiv Kumar Sharma in his office in Muzaffarnagar. While talking about how Muslim youth indulge in love jihad, Shiv Kumar claims himself to be a Hindu terrorist and he goes on to tell how he would go about killing Muslims: “Asliyat mein hum pahle Hindu Dharm Rakshak Sena chaalate the, Hindu aatankwaadi sangthan. Musalmanon ki hatya karte the, masjidon pe bomb fenkte the matlab jo ye karte the Hinduon ke saath wo ye karte the toh waha per hum log ek parcha bhi daltae the uski zimmedaari lete the baqayda aur hamari paanch maang thi: Bharat ko Hindu raashtra banao, Ayodhya mein Ram mandir banao, Kashmir se dhaara 370 khatam karo (Actually we used to run a Hindu Dharm Sena, a Hindu terrorist group. We used to kill Muslims, throw bombs at mosques and basically did everything they do against the Hindus. We also used to place a pamphlet taking full responsibility of such acts and put forth our five demands: make India a Hindu Rashtra, build a Ram temple at Ayodhya, revoke Section 370 from Kashmir …).”

He goes on to add how he enjoyed killing Muslims: “Yeh bachpan se hi hai main aapko bataoon… mere upar case chal rahe hain… san 1996–97 mein jab Musalmano ko maarne ke liye nikalte the to poori raat ghoomte the agar koi na maara aur wapas aa gaye khaali haath toh badha ajeeb sa mahsoos hota tha jaise kuch hua hi na ho aur agar kisi Musalman ko maar diya uss din jashn manta tha bas jaise bahut khushi jaise andar hi andar aur jis din kisi Maulvi ko maar diya us din to jaise zameen par pair nahin lag rahe to maine mahsoos kiya tha ki mere pair zameen se 6 foot upar chal rahe the jaise main ud raha hun mera toh sapna tha main police pakde jail jaaoon (I’m like that since my child hood. I have cases pending against me since long… in 1996–97 when we used to kill Muslims, we used to roam around at nights, hunting them down. At times when we could not kill one, we used to feel life worthless, as if nothing had happened… if we killed a Muslim, we used to celebrate the occasion, and if we managed to kill a Maulvi, then our happiness would know no bounds. I would feel like walking on clouds. I always had this dream that police would arrest me and through me in the jail).”

Shazia’s conversation with BJP MLA from Thana Bhawan, Suresh Rana, gives a peek at a “rescue operation” in Shamli he was a part of. A Hindu girl had gone out with three Muslim boys one evening. Rana alleged that this was a case of “love jihad” and got the boys charged with rape. He then goes onto explain how he got the girl to give a false statement.

Later on in the conversation, Rana admits his involvement in fabricating rape charges against innocent Muslim boys as a part of his fight against love jihad.

Jagdish Shenava, a lawyer and VHP’s Mangalore district working president, also recounted his experience of being involved in a rescue operation on February 29, 2014. He confesses to slapping false charges on Muslim men and admits using mobs to build pressure on police and to disrupt law and order.

He admits to having been involved in several cases of “love jihad”. Recounting one particular case, he confesses that he got a Muslim man arrested on charges of kidnapping and talked the woman out of her decision to be with a Muslim man after “counseling” her. Says Jagdish Shenava: “If they don’t understand, we use force.”

The same day our correspondent met BJP MLC Captain Ganesh Karnik in the party’s headquarters in Mangalore, who claims to have infiltrated the police force with RSS workers: “We have tried to send some of our boys into police. When I talk to students I tell them to join the police. So when we need help there are a lot of karyakartas, RSS. Sixty percent of the young constables are our students.” This infiltration into the police force comes in handy when they need to take the law into their hands.

In Kerala, the Hindu Helpline has taken to administering drugs to girls who have been “rescued”. These drugs cause temporary amnesia and are used to bring the girl under control if she is “being too aggressive”, says Cijiith of the Hindu Helpline in Ernakulam. ““When she is adamant on Islam, we will send her to a religious counselling centre so that she can have a debate with our experts on the Quran. Even with that if she is not convinced, we send her to a medical hospital where she will be kept in a cell, she will be under some medication if she is aggressive… (If she doesn’t relent even then), we will send her somewhere [else] where she can be kept for some days.”

Cijith believes that the work of the BJP, RSS and VHP has shown positive results. They also went on to propagate the stereotype of a Muslim as a terrorist.

Lalit Maheshwari, district president of VHP in Muzaffarnagar, admits that the organisation has been mobilising people on “love jihad” for over two years and confesses using pressure on the CJM to influence cases involving Muslim boys. Maheswari confesses to the existence of a lawyers association of the VHP that provides legal aid to “victims” of “love jihad.” He admits that girls are forced to give statements against their Muslim lovers/friends and his team slaps false cases on the boys to build pressure. Teams are formed that engage in door-to-door campaign propagating the myth that Muslims are engaging in “love jihad” and are a threat to Hindu women and to Hinduism in India.

Ravish Tantri, chief of Hindu Unity Forum in Kerala, adds fuel to the fire. He says, “When the girl goes from the conversion centre to the court, we warn her that if she does not give a statement on her parents side and does not marry the guy prescribed by us, then the moment she and her husband step out of the court, they will be killed by our people.” He adds that the Congress and the Marxists also support them at times.

Following the trail of love jihad in Uttar Pradesh, Cobrapost correspondent went to Meerut and Muzaffarnagar. During the Assembly by-elections of 2014, two cases related to love jihad were filed in these districts. One was in Kharkhoda police station of Meerut and the other from Meerapur police station of Muzaffarnagar district.

It was during the time of Hindu–Muslim riots Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh in 2103 when the term “love jihad” first started floating around, adding fuel to the communal fire. In the run-up to the 2014 Assembly by-elections, the Opposition BJP in the state hyped the issue. It was then that a “love jihad” incident came to light in September 2014. A girl called Kajal (name changed) approached Meerut’s inspector general of police with the complaint that she was raped by Dr. Abdul Kalam, the owner of a private hospital where she worked. She accused the doctor of threatening to change her religion after marrying her. Eleven people were accused in the case under Sections 498, 376, 323, 295 (A) and 506 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC). The FIR was lodged at Meerapur police station. Abdul Kalam was arrested and jailed.

The Cobrapost correspondent began investigating the case, starting from Meerapur police station. He met Constable Deepa Sirohi, who revealed some surprising facts. She said that the victim had changed her earlier statement and had given it in favour of the accused. To confirm this, our correspondent spoke to Inspector Kamal Singh Yadav at Meerapur police station, who said that neither was the girl raped nor was her religion changed. He said that a local reporter, Balbir Goswami, had spread these “rumours”. Inspector Yadav said that the woman had stated, “Koi matter nahi hai aur maine apni marzi sey kari thi ye logon ne behka diya, patrakaro ne… main fir se apne aap aa gai hu pati ke paas, Dr. Abdul Kalam ke paas aur inko zamanat de do (There is no matter as such and I had married him according to my wish. I was instigated by some people and a reporter. Now that I’m back with my husband Dr. Abdul Kalam, I request you to grant him bail).”

Inspector Yadav added that in order to settle matters, some BJP workers came to the police station. He said that they had targeted all Hindu–Muslim married couples of the area and had tried to persuade the Hindu wives to return to their parents.

Cobrapost also met Sub-Inspector Khan, who was in-charge of this case. He revealed another astonishing aspect and said that it was about a plot of land which Abdul Kalam had bought in the name of his first wife. This was bothering Kajal. She had later said that Balbir Goswami, the reporter, was from her caste. Sub-Inspector Khan added that while Kajal was giving her statement, many BJP workers were present. After recording her statement, Kajal went to the RSS office.

Cobrapost then met Mukesh Mishra, the circle officer of Jansath near Muzaffarnagar, who also investigated the case. He echoed what Inspector Yadav and Sub-Inspector Khan had told us: the case had nothing to do with love jihad.

CO Mukesh Mishra said that the family members of the woman were aware of her relationship with the doctor and that the reporter was responsible for spreading rumours.

Next, we met Kajal’s uncle and aunt, who also refuted claims of love jihad and said that it was only a matter of money. They said that the Shiv Sena was involved in hyping the issue.

Finally, the Cobrapost correspondent spoke to Kajal over the phone. She said, “Maine shaadi doctor sahib se apni marzi se ki thi (I married doctor saheb because I wanted to).” She added that the issue had been resolved amicably and it was not a case of “love jihad.” She said that she lodged the complaint at the behest of some people and that she is living with her husband and has withdrawn her complaint. She blamed some organisations and media persons for hyping the case (maine apna ye case wapas le liya hai…ye kuch sangthan wale hai aur kuch media wale hai).

Another incident in Kharkhoda also occurred during the Assembly by-elections in 2014. The father of Neha (name changed) from village Sarawa in Meerut district filed a case in Kharkhoda police station on August 3, 2014. In the FIR, the father claimed that Neha had been gang-raped by Kalim of the village’s school and by the village pradhan and that she was forcibly converted to Islam. Her father also demanded an investigation into a mark on Neha’s stomach. The issue was hyped by the local BJP and RSS and made newspaper and TV headlines.

To investigate the case, our correspondent met Station Officer (SO) Alka Singh of the ladies police station in Meerut, who was the investigating officer. We came to know from her that the victim had changed her statement. Earlier, Neha had complained that she was raped and converted to Islam and had accused nine men. Later, she backtracked and denied the incidents and said that her family was paid money by some groups and politicians. “My father wanted to kill me. He wanted money as there was no money coming into the family. I had relations with Kalim… as a lover,” she said.

The Cobrapost correspondent went to Sarawa to meet Neha’s parents. Her father denied that he wanted to kill Neha. When we asked her mother about money being paid to them, she said a politician had promised them Rs. 25,000, which they never got.

Neha’s father told us that Ashu Tyagi of the Hindu Jagran Manch had spearheaded the whole issue and had torn the circle officer’s uniform to create pressure on the administration. He claimed that Ashu Tyagi made Neha change her statement and that the Shiv Sena, Bajrang Dal and other organizations had helped him.

When Cobrapost visited Kharkhoda police station and spoke to its SHO Manoj , he said that Neha had been changing her statements had confused the police and that there was the issue of money between her father and her uncle regarding the Rs. 25,000 promised by a politician.

On the trail of the Kharkhoda case, the Cobrapost correspondent reached Sarawa, a village in Meerut district. Here he met Sanaullah, an accused in cases of rape, kidnapping and fraud. The same cases were lodged against his wife. Sanaullah had got bail after eight months in prison but his wife was still in jail. Sanaullah raises the question that since the girl who had accused him has changed her statement in his favour, why has the case not been dismissed?

Sanaullah and his son Irfan say that they are victims of village politics and that they don’t know the prime accused Kalim. He adds that along with the villagers, BJP’s UP state president Laxmikant Vajpayee, BJP’s Vyapar Prakosth’s Vineet Agarwal and BJP MP Rajendra Agarwal, hatched the conspiracy.

When Cobrapost looked at official documents that were filed in the court, we discovered the following facts of the case:

• In the FIR, Neha’s father had complained of a gang-rape, whereas the girl has not even mentioned it in her statement.

• Six people were accused of gang-rape whereas the victim stated it was by just one man.

• When Neha was asked again if she was raped or not, she denied it and gave a scripted answer that she has already spoken enough and shall not speak further.

• Though Kalim was the main accused in the FIR, Neha had not mentioned his name anywhere in her statement to police.

• In her statement, she said that while she was being raped, she felt as if she was drugged but did not mention how she was given drugs.

• The mark on her stomach (that her father wanted to be investigated), was from the abortion she had in a clinic in Meerut, in which her fallopian tubes had to be removed due to blockage of the foetus.

• In her statement, Neha said that the abortion was done in Muzaffarnagar whereas the documents submitted in court show that it was done in Meerut under the supervision of Dr. Sabita Jairath.

• Neha said in the statement that she was raped in a car on June 29 whereas the investigation report states that she stayed overnight with the accused in a hotel.

Cobrapost -Gulail Investigation

Date : 05/10/2015
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1 Comment

Sanil AroraOct 05, 2015

Does the Congress mouth piece cobra post have any statistics regarding the number of Hindu men brutally murdered by Islamic goons for marrying muslim girls? Even if you have, it would not be sickular, would it?